Philippians 1:2-11 (ESV)2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace,[d] both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Though this page is still small in its readership, I think and pray often for each of you who takes the time to read this blog. Thank you, for joining me in reading and studying the Word of God throughout your week. This week has been fairly inactive here at Faithful Stewardship, so I wanted to take some time to acknowledge that fact and provide a little background. I am currently taking some college courses, one of which is the History of Philosophy and this week I have a rather hefty exam.

That is not to say that I am not concurrently working on Bible Studies to share here. I am extremely excited about the next two subjects.

1. We will be taking a close look at the sin of the Pharisees. Regrettably, a popular theme in modern-day Christianity has been to silence those practicing Biblical discernment and are actually doing the work of pointing out poor hermeneutics and false teaching, by accusing them of being Pharisaical. While that is an Ad Hominem attack, it’s not enough to point out the fallacy of argument (argument from fallacy, fallacy). Besides, there could be a spec of truth to it, so we need to do the work of first rightly understanding the sin of the Pharisee, so that we can see what the proper accusation of Pharisaical error should be.
2. We will be taking a close look at the early Gospel confessions of Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of God”. I find that for years I have skimmed over this one monumentally significant point in the Gospel, that the children of Israel (and even the Samaritans) were indeed looking for “the Christ, the Son of God”. I think a big part of this oversight is that we, Christians, approach the study of Scriptures already knowing Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of God”, because we have the New Testament (and most of us are told to read the New Testament first. I even advise it myself!). However, at the time that Jesus walked the earth in the flesh, there was no New Testament; therefore, the significance of each confession of Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of God” is monumental. So I want to pour through the Old Testament Prophets to look at what it was these followers of God were looking for in the Christ, the Son of God. As it stands now, this will probably be a 2 part series at a minimum, because once we’ve developed a picture of what these people were looking for in the Christ, the Son of God… we’ll need to examine what it means when Jesus warned of false christs in the end time. I don’t think He was limiting His warning to just those who claim to be Jesus… there is more to it than that. I’m extremely excited for this series.

If I might be so bold, I’d like to ask for your prayers. We are currently in the process of building a home, finding a new Church, and seeking new opportunities for work and ministry. Additionally, I’m trying to complete my college degree (somewhat begrudgingly), and I need grace in that endeavor as well. I thank you for your time and your prayers. May the Lord bless and keep you always.

In Him,
Jorge